


'Cause It's True Love

by ThatRavenclawBitch



Series: A Toxic Event [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:56:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatRavenclawBitch/pseuds/ThatRavenclawBitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of "Half of Something Else".</p>
<p>Gold wakes up with a massive hangover and a sinking feeling of guilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Cause It's True Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song "True Love" by the Airborne Toxic Event. I thought it was fitting.

Gold wakes up with a splitting headache. 

To be fair, he woke up to a piercing shaft of golden sunlight that cut through the curtains and right across his face which caused him to jolt awake, immediately be overcome with unbearable nausea, just barely make it to the kitchen sink before emptying the contents of his stomach and then come to enough to realize that he had a splitting headache. 

Now, he’s sitting on his ex girlfriend’s sofa in nothing but his boxers and trying to piece together what exactly he did last night. He has a sinking feeling that no matter what happened, Belle will probably never want to see him again. He has the vague sense of shame that tends to accompany blackout drunkenness, and he has no doubt it’s well earned. 

He remembers seeing her leave the Rabbit Hole with Nottingham, remembers following them from the bar and up to Belle’s apartment. He thought he’d made the decision to leave well enough alone, and yet here he is.

Reaching for his trousers, unceremoniously rumpled on the floor, Gold digs out his cell phone from his pocket and checks the time. It’s not even 7 a.m. and a Saturday to boot. Belle was never much of an early riser, so he has no doubt she’s still sound asleep. He should slip out before she wakes, before he can heap more embarrassment on himself.

Picking his shirt up from the ground and shrugging the sleeves on to his aching, dehydrated muscles, Gold is overcome with a sudden flash of memory from the previous night.

He clearly remembers sitting here on this couch as Belle unbuttoned and removed his shirt. He can still feel the prickle of her fingertips against his bare chest.

Gold shakes his head at the memory and is immediately sorry for it as light bursts behind his eyes and his brain seems to ricochet around inside the cavern of his skull. His stomach roils with another bout of nausea and he rushes for the bathroom this time, choking down the bile that burns the back of his throat.

He rises from the toilet a moment later gasping and sputtering, and there’s no way he’s ever having a drink at the Rabbit Hole for the rest of his natural life. He’s in such a foul mood he briefly considers upping the establishment’s monthly rent in exchange for the hangover, though he knows there’s no one to blame for his current situation but himself.

Well himself and Nottingham.

That’s one thing he remembers clearly from the night before. Belle didn’t go home with Nottingham. Thank God for small mercies. She’d told him so specifically, after expressing that she also would not be spending the night with him.

Just as well. If this morning is any indication, he wouldn’t have been good for much last night.  

Gold eyes her shower longingly. He can smell the rank scent of whiskey and cigarettes and bile pouring off him. But he shouldn’t stay longer than necessary. And stripping naked in Belle’s apartment is just asking for trouble.

So he makes his way back to the front room as quietly as possible and finishes getting dressed in yesterday’s clothes. His heart seizes in his chest when he sees the glass of water and bottle of aspirin left innocuously on the side table. His Belle, always trying to save him from himself.

Popping a couple of aspirin in his mouth and downing the glass of water, Gold retrieves his cane and heads out the front door as quietly as possible. He needs to open the shop soon and move on with his day. He knows something like this can’t happen again.

* * *

Gold winces at the sound of his shop door slamming open. Despite a short nap, a long shower and an entire pot of coffee, he’s still nursing his worst hangover in decades. Standing slowly, he makes his way to the front of the shop. But before he can reach the curtain that separates his private sanctuary from the rest of the shop he is faced with a fuming Belle.

“Where the hell do you get off?” 

“Excuse me?” he asks, wincing again at the pitch of her voice. He’d been fairly certain she’d invited him up to sleep on her sofa last night. As much as he’s sure he was an imposition, he didn’t think she was that angry with him.

“You think you can follow me home, pass out in front of my apartment, essentially call me a slut multiple times in an evening, make me take care of your drunken ass, and then just leave in the morning without so much as a goodbye?” 

Belle’s long curls fly about her shoulders as she jabs his chest with her pointer finger, her blue eyes alight with righteous anger. She’s so beautiful he could cry. He can never do right by this woman. Even when he tries to leave her alone, to let her get on without him, he can’t seem to do the right thing.

“I thought I’d been enough of an imposition,” he explains. “I was trying to get out of your hair.”

Belle lets out a frustrated groan, and he vaguely recalls her making the same sound last night.

“I’ll never have you out of my hair, Gold. You could at least be polite!”

Gold rubs at his temples trying to stem the headache there. “I’m sorry, Belle. I thought I’d been enough trouble for an evening. I thought I’d spare you any further discomfort at being in my presence.”

Belle just stares at him, mouth agape.

“Well that’s for me to decide isn’t it?”

“I suppose.” Belle never did like him making decisions for her.

She nods, pacing away across the back room, trailing a finger across the scattered works in progress that litter his desk.

“Did you mean what you said last night?” she asks suddenly. And he’s not entirely sure what she’s referring to. Whatever it is he probably did mean it. Alcohol is nature’s truth serum.

“I recall saying several things, to which declaration are you referring?”

Belle crosses her arms against her chest protectively. She suddenly looks so young and small, and Gold’s fierce urge to protect her has never been stronger, even from himself.

“You said that you missed me,” she answers in a small voice.

And if that’s not the understatement of the fucking century.

“Yes,” he manages to rasp out. “I do. Miss you.” 

Belle finally looks up at him, eyes huge in her pale face.

“I miss you, too. All of you. Not just the good parts.”

“Why, Belle?” he implores her. “Why do you put up with me? I’m toxic, nothing good can ever come from me.”

“Because I love you, you moron! I never stopped loving you!”

And he’ll never be sure who made the next move because suddenly his lips are pressed against hers, and Belle is reaching up on her tiptoes and twining her fingers in his hair, gripping on to him like he’s the only thing keeping her afloat.

She gasps against his mouth, and Gold takes the opportunity to plunder her mouth with his tongue. She tastes like mint tea and the strawberry flavor of her lip-gloss. And it’s exotic and familiar all at once, like coming home from a long trip and finding that things aren’t quite the same as they used to be. They’re even better because you’ve been gone so long and the idea built up in your head pales in comparison to the real thing.

His hands grip her waist tightly as she arches into him, pressing her hips firmly against his. And if they stay in this position, he won’t be able to hide her effect on him for much longer. 

It takes every ounce of willpower he has to pull himself away from her lips.

“My darling Belle,” he gasps, overcome with the sheer amount of love in his heart that refuses to be contained. “I love you too. So, so much, my dear. But are you absolutely certain you want this?”

“I’ve been lost without you, Aiden. What we have, it’s True Love. And when you find something that precious, you have to fight for it, right?”

“Yeah,” Gold agrees, before hauling her back against him and kissing her once more. 

And this kiss is anything but gentle. It’s raw and demanding and desperate. It’s the clash of lips and tongue and teeth. They manage a little finesse after a moment, and then Gold is maneuvering them back across the room toward that blasted twin bed. Had he been a wise man and come here last night to sleep off his drunkenness, this reconciliation might have never happened. He’s never been more grateful for a stupid decision.

Belle pushes him back until the mattress hits the back of his knees and he sits hard. She’s straddling him a second later, pulling at the knot in his tie in between kisses, and grinding her hips against his. He’s still sluggish from his hangover, and all he can do is rub his palms up and down her sides, mesmerized as she continues to undress him.

Belle’s managed to get his tie and waistcoat off, and undo half his shirt buttons before he realizes he should be a more active participant. Tugging at the hem of her sundress, Belle pulls back from him just long enough to pull the offending fabric over her head, the sight of Belle in nothing but lacy pink knickers and matching bra almost enough to have him coming in his pants like a schoolboy.

The feel of her warm skin pressed against his is slowly causing Gold lose his mind, and he’s going to have to pace himself if he wants to last long enough to please Belle.  

She’s up a moment later, standing between his thighs as she tugs at his belt, her fingers brushing against the hard length of him. This isn’t going to last long at all.

Capturing Belle’s wrists in his hands, he stops her from removing his belt. She looks up at him with confusion, but there’s something else there as well – a frantic kind of fear.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” 

“I want you,” she replies, reaching forward to try to kiss his neck. His already hard cock is positively straining at her words. Still, he pulls back and meets her eye again.

There are tears in her eyes, and Gold is instantly afraid he’s done some irreparable harm. He seems incapable of ever doing the right thing where Belle is concerned.

“I’m afraid.” She says plainly. Gold’s heart seizes to see those blue eyes full of tears, her bottom lip trembling.

“Of what?”

Sniffing, Belle lets her hands fall to her sides. “I’m afraid if I give you a moment to think about this, you’ll pull back again. You’ll try to end things for my own good or something equally ridiculous.”

Gold shakes his head confused. 

“Sweetheart, I’m not one to lay blame, but you’re the one who left me, remember?”

Belle sighs and moves to sit next to him on the bed.

“I didn’t want to leave, Aiden. I left because you pushed me away so hard and so often, that I thought it was the only way to get through to you.” She shrugs her shoulders a little at that. “I guess it wasn’t my best idea.” 

“I’m sorry, Belle. I’m a difficult man to love.”

Belle shakes her head. “No. Loving you was always the easy part. Making you believe it is the hard part.”

Cupping her cheek, Gold presses his forehead against hers, breathing in the lightly floral scent of her. “I can’t promise that’ll get any easier, love. But I will try. For you I’d do anything.”  

And then he’s kissing her again, no less passionate this time, but the frantic edge is gone. They manage to finally free him of his trousers, and he rolls her underneath him, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the column of her throat.

Belle moans and shunts her hips up against his. There’s no way he can wait any longer, so he hooks his thumbs under the waistband of her tiny knickers while she pulls at his boxers and before long there’s nothing left separating him from his beautiful girl.

He never could have imagined this happening when he’d sat at the bar pining for the one that got away only twelve hours ago. Perhaps he’d cut the Rabbit Hole a break when their lease came up again.

But Belle is gasping his name, and Gold doesn’t need to be told twice before he’s lining them up and pushing into her tight, wet, heat. He savors it for a moment, the feeling of Belle surrounding him, her inner muscles grasping at him, finally home. And then she’s urging him to move, her legs coming up to wrap around his waist, her tiny feet pressing into the small of his back.

They establish a steady rhythm, Gold’s face buried against Belle’s neck as she whispers words of love against the shell of his ear. And then it’s all too much; he’s quickening his thrusts, losing himself in the sensation and Belle’s steady stream of encouragement. He can’t let her down again, though. Wedging a hand between their bodies, he rubs at her just to the right of her clit, the place that used to always have her crying out for him, remembering how to play her body like a finely tuned instrument.

It only takes a couple of flicks of his thumb before she’s gasping and shuddering beneath him, her cries of completion the final push he needs before he’s coming hard along with her.

He collapses atop her, sweaty and spent. Belle is breathing hard and rubbing his back, murmuring words he can’t make out. He lies there for a moment, catching his breath before he rolls to the side, spooning up behind her feeling content for the first time in months.

Wrapping one arm around her waist, the other hand traces the strap of her bra they never managed to divest her of during their coupling. That’s when it hits him.

“Belle?”

“Hmm?” she answers sleepily.

“Sweetheart, your bra matches your knickers.” 

Belle shrugs her shoulder. “So?”

“So your bras never match your knickers. Did you come here expecting this?”

Belle rolls over to face him with a small smile. “Well, it always was the quickest way to get through to you.”

Gold lets his mouth fall open at that. “You little minx! You came here to seduce me!”

Belle rolls back over, pressing her backside into his groin.

“Oh hush, Aiden. Lets take a nap.”

Laughing Gold presses a kiss to her soft hair, letting the exhaustion of the morning seep in.

His last thought before sleep takes him is that he may have just found the world’s best cure for a hangover.

 

 


End file.
